Truth Unites - Are the End Times Here? Explaining Each Event

Episode Date: January 26, 2026

Gavin Ortlund offers a big-picture guide to the end times, explaining what all Christians agree on, where faithful disagreements remain, and why future hope should fuel present faithfulness rather than fear.Truth Unites (https://truthunites.org) exists to promote gospel assurance through theological depth. Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is President of Truth Unites, Visiting Professor of Historical Theology at Phoenix Seminary, and Theologian-in-Residence at Immanuel Nashville.SUPPORT:Tax Deductible Support: https://truthunites.org/donate/Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/truthunitesFOLLOW:Website: https://truthunites.org/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/truth.unites/X: https://x.com/gavinortlundFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/

Are we currently living in the end times? A lot of Christians are wondering about this, panic watching the news each day, wondering what is happening to the world. We need hope, and this area of theology is designed to give it to us to put hope in our hearts every day if we get it right. But there's a lot of errors and misunderstandings and also neglect in this area. So this video is my effort to serve the body of Christ, offering what I hope is a one-stop-shop overview of eschatology. Eschatology is the branch of theology concerned with the final events in history, especially those things leading up to the second coming of Christ. In one sense, we've been in the last days or the end times ever since Pentecost. But as you know, there's a specific chain of events that many Christians are thoughtful about right now.

What is the nature of the Antichrist, the Great Tribulation, the final resurrection, all of these things we want to think through together in this video, you'll be disappointed if you're expecting me to nail everything down. The goal is actually more to triage these different issues with a view to just day-to-day faithfulness to Christ. But I'll do my best, and where I don't address things, I'll highlight other videos where I either have or will. And if you're expecting a specific answer in terms of the timeline, I can disappoint you up front and say, I have no idea how far away the second coming of Christ is. I just think we should be ready at any time. But there are some things we can say about that, and I'll return to that at the end. We'll go in three chapters in this video.

Chapter 1 warns against four dangers that are present when we're studying the end times, majoring on the miners, hype, speculation, and historical ignorance. Chapter 2 will explain four essential doctrines that all Christians should agree on concerning the end times. The second coming, final resurrection, final judgment, and the final state. And then chapter 3 will explain four disagreements that Christians have about the end times, that even though they matter, they don't make you a faithful Christian or not if you get them right or wrong. They're important, but they're not the difference between orthodoxy and heresy. That's the millennium, the rapture, the Antichrist, and the Great Tribulation. Those final three topics there, I'll treat briefly,

but I at least want to kind of sketch out, you know, here's what this is and where you can find more information. And I'm going to argue those are a third-rank issues, which I'll explain more. that just means we don't need to divide from other Christians based on disagreements with them. That's a huge part of my heart on this topic. So we've got four dangers, four doctrines, four disagreements. Let's dive right in. This will be a longer video, but even as long as it is, I've condensed it down, boiled it down, trying to be helpful to you so that my videos aren't wasting your time.

Before diving in, though, one quick question. Why does this matter? And the answer to that in one sentence is that it's imperative for Christians to have an accurate view of our future hope because that affects how we follow Jesus in the present. Put it like this, future hope fuels present faithfulness. Here's a metaphor. Suppose you're sailing toward the shoreline, and it's a dark night and a stormy night, and there's a lighthouse that's there that is specifically designed to guide you safely to the shore,

but someone goes up to the lighthouse and turns it down by 50%. now you're struggling to see it, and then they turn it down to 95%, or they turn it down by 95%, so you can't see it at all. This is going to cause problems, and you might crash into the rocks. You need the lighthouse to be bright so that you know where to sail. And in the same way, when we can clearly see what the Bible teaches about our future hope, it helps us follow Jesus faithfully in the present, and we desperately need that hope. We've just launched into 2006. If there's ever a time where it feels like people are aching for hope,

certainly in my lifetime it's never felt quite like this. The global instability, political turmoil, the rise of AI, so much else leaves people like they're sailing in the dark and they don't have a lighthouse to guide them. The gospel speaks to that. Part of the gospel is these future events. It gives us the best possible hope. The gospel is that lighthouse.

And so we want to turn the light up and get biblical clarity so that if you're not a Christian watching this, you might think by the end of this video, I wish that were true. And if you do know Jesus, your heart would be filled with peace and joy and abounding in hope, as Paul says, in Romans 1513. So may that be in your heart as we go. Chapter 1, four dangers in studying the end times. And let's start with majoring on the minors. I've kind of already mentioned this already. This is a huge temptation to put the primary focus, both emotionally and or intellectually on the secondary and tertiary aspects of the end times, especially the chronology of events leading up to the second coming of Christ,

where there's areas of disagreement among godly Christians. We're going to cover these things in chapter three. Now, these doctrines are still important. We're not minimizing them, but they are not the main object of Christian hope that is meant to sustain us day by day. We should study them, we should debate them, but there's a real danger of becoming more emotionally preoccupied by what you see on the right side of the screen than what you can see on the left side of the screen. What the New Testament emphasizes as our central hope is that Jesus will come again,

the dead will be raised, there will be final judgment day, and then we will enter into the final state, which includes what are sometimes called heaven and hell, and we'll explore that terminology a little bit when we get there, those four events, I suggest to you, form the skeletal backbone of Christian eschatology. Sometimes Christians just assume that, and then we put all the focus on these other little details, the things on the right side of the screen. And this to me is like when my kids focus all on eating snacks rather than eating meals, which is not healthy, but sometimes we could be tempted to do that. And the results that I see from this danger is two things. First, unnecessary division. Many Christians separate over and require agreement on these tertiary doctrines,

placing them, for example, in a local church's statement of faith or Christian institutions' statement of faith, so you have to affirm this to be a member there. I'm going to argue in chapter three that we can just allow for Christians to have, to follow their conscience on those kinds of issues that I'll cover there. The second danger, though, the second consequence when we major on the miners is we have a reduced hope. We turn down the brightness of the lighthouse, because the primary object of our hope is Jesus himself will return. And this is what is so emphasized so pervasively all throughout the New Testament. I'll just put up one passage as an example of this from Hebrews 928. And we don't just want to affirm what the Bible affirms. We want to emphasize. We want to

emphasize what the Bible emphasizes. And that means we've got to be so clear on the primary issues so we don't turn down the lighthouse. A second danger is hype. Sometimes what generates excitement in the end times is not the grounded hope of scripture, but hype and sensationalism, and there's kind of a wow factor involved in the thrill of decoding headlines and the sense of insider knowledge and a feeling of urgency. You know, each day the newspaper has new stories, and it feels exciting to try to put it all together. And I guess I don't want to push against that desire in your heart too much. That desire for your life to matter within a larger meaningful context is good.

But the hype that comes gives you an adrenaline rush rather than a really healthy, sustaining faith. It creates nerves. It excites you, but it doesn't really anchor your soul. And so whatever is legitimate about that longing in our hearts for a sense, of the unfolding drama of history should be fulfilled by the true hope of the gospel. The gospel speaks to that. The gospel is exciting.

Resurrection is exciting. The renewal of all things is exciting. So we want to locate our excitement in Jesus and major on the majors. And a good test for whether we're being drawn into an unhealthy hype here can be, is our view of the end times leading to godliness? Is it causing me to be faithful? Is it causing me to put sin to death? Is it causing me to persevere in suffering and to abound in the fruits of the Spirit and so forth?

It should. Just think about it. You know, one day, Jesus will return, and all glory will go to the one to whom it should go now. That's the most painful thing about the world right now. It's not that we still suffer, though that is terrible, and that would be great to be over with that. It's that glory isn't given to Jesus as it ought to be. And so this should mobilize the feeling in our heart of, I want to be faithful to him now because he is coming then. I think a good prayer can come from 1 John 3, 3, to simply say,

Lord, purify my heart now because I'm going to see you. Here's a third danger, and that's speculation. Through our church history, I'm sure you're aware of this, hopefully you are aware of this. There have been these unfortunate episodes where Christians make predictions about the second coming, and this has been very unfortunate with very disillusioning consequences. Here's a famous example in the 1840s, William Miller predicted that the second coming of Christ was imminent. And so you can see him on the screen here, along with a prophetic chart of 1843. The initial predicted date was between March 21, 1843, and March 21, 1844. Then it was adjusted to October 22, 1844, and when it didn't happen, it damaged a lot of people. In the New Testament,

Jesus explicitly warns against overconfidence in identifying the timing of the second coming. Matthew 24, he even says, nobody knows not even the angels nor the sun. Just think about that. Even the angels don't know exactly what it's going to be. I never thought about that for some reason about the angels. They're waiting too. In Acts 1-7, Jesus says it's not for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. So there's a tension here because on the one hand, we should be

ready at all times. On the other hand, we want to be discerning about the times. But the simple fact is we are not given a countdown clock, and the focus of the Bible is not on satisfying our curiosities, but on shaping our character. Jesus is more interested in our faithfulness than in our charts. We should have the heart cry of come soon, and I'm ready at any time. But we don't need to know. time. And so the excitement in our hearts shouldn't be rooted in the details or timing, but in its certainty and in what it is. What should thrill us is what's going to happen, not knowing when. Now, if someone is tempted toward speculation here, I don't want to put too much shame on that. I would just invite us to turn our prayers from Jesus, when are you coming,

to Jesus, let me be ready at any moment. And I also think the prayer right with that one can be Lord Jesus, come soon. What a wonderful prayer. I mean, you should pray that prayer every day. Let that be just part of your regular prayer life. If you struggle with prayer, this is a great thing to come back to again and again. Come soon. A fourth danger is historical ignorance. Let me say this one with all the love of my heart, as one who aspires to be a servant of evangelicalism, and I defend evangelicalism from criticisms, but it's time for some straight talk here on this one. what often happens in Christian circles today, especially evangelical ones, is not just that we teach views of the end times that were unpopular in church history, but that we require views of

the end times that did not exist anywhere for the majority of church history. Let me say that again. We're not just affirming what is unpopular. We're requiring what was non-existent. For example, some surveys estimate that a majority of American evangelicals hold to dispensational pre-millennialism. I will say more about that view later. For now, I'm establishing just the principle, so don't worry about those big words. But this view did not exist as a developed system before the 1830s. I'll explain that more in chapter three. So, you know, here's the thing. It's one thing if you say, we need to make a change. And as the church, we need to make a course correction. Sometimes that is necessary, especially when the reform or change you are calling for has precedent in prior church history.

It's another thing to make the change without even realizing that's what you're doing and when there is zero precedent for it. If you're walking through the woods and you decide to stray off the path a little bit for a principled reason, that's one thing. But if you stray off the path and you don't even realize you've strayed off the path, that's another. And so as one who aspires to literally spend my life serving evangelical Christianity, I need to say that a huge weakness of modern evangelicalism is our underdeveloped awareness of church history. I feel this personally, by the way, as an academic who works in historical theology and loves reading like Anselm and so forth. And then I live and pastor in evangelical contexts.

I often feel the effects of this tension. People, for example, accuse me of liberalism on certain views like creation. or the flood or even my political posture. But my views on those things are informed by historic Christian orthodoxy. And when people call these things liberal, I'm afraid they're often simply unaware that these views are widely represented among faithful Christians of the past, including fundamentalists of previous centuries. If where you set the bandwidth entails that Jay Gresham-Machin and B.B. Warfield and Charles

Spurgeon and countless others are all looking. liberals, you at least need to give an argument for that view. Otherwise, it's coming across as a judgment of ignorance. And I don't say that to jab at anyone or out of defensiveness, truly. I say that because I think it needs to be said, because I want to, one of the things I want to do is serve evangelicalism by doing a lot of retrieval work, and that leads to the triage work. I just think we have a huge issue here. And some of you who watch my channels are very sympathetic to this already. There's whole swaths of evangelicalism that I think are still here where we need more awareness. And I think we need that on our views of the end times.

So as we dive into this now, I'm going to encourage us to consider the insights of church history, not because it is infallible, but because it is so tremendously useful and necessary and helpful, particularly as we interpret the scripture, which is our chief authority. So I hope you hear that from my heart and where I'm coming from on that. We've got some eccentricities in this area. Let's work through them. Chapter 2, essential doctrines. And let's start here with the Second Coming, which is the central organizing climactic end times event. And I want to say four things about it. First, the second coming is personal. Jesus himself will return. This will not be an angel on Jesus' behalf, nor is the Second Coming a metaphor

for the kingdom of Jesus being established in some way. Rather, Scripture emphasizes a continuity of identity between the first and second coming, and think about it like this. When Jesus ascended into heaven in Acts chapter 1, the angels say, this Jesus, who was taken up, will come in the same way. And so this is a simple point, but it actually is vital pastorally, and it can help ward away. I'm thinking very pastorally throughout this video.

We want to have lots of prayers interlaced with everything. Some Christians I've discovered are scared of the end times. They are scared of the second coming. And if you experience that, one way to help that, push against that, is to think of the absolute center of eschatology is not a series of events, but a person. This is Jesus, the one who died for us, the one who loves us,

the one to whom we can fully yield our souls and be vulnerable and worship and love. He's coming. Second, the second coming is bodily. Jesus returns in his glorified, resurrected human body. He will not return in an invisible manner. It will not be in a disembodied spirit. Therefore, this event will be visible. And here, again, we can go back to Acts 111.

This simple verse helps us a lot. And in particular, I've emboldened the words this time in the same way. Now this is tricky. This does not mean that the ascension of Christ in Acts 1 and the second coming are identical in every respect, as though, you know, it's the same thing, but in one he's going up and the other he's coming down. The ascension was a local event, so people in Brazil did not witness the ascension. And I have a video on the ascension for what is kind of a unique event that is and how

instructive it is to think about that. the second coming is a cosmic universal event. You know, I actually thought about this more clearly today in preparing this video for you all. The second coming is associated with this broader transformation of all creation. So 2 Peter 310 says the heavens are going to pass away. Heavenly bodies will be dissolved at the second coming. However you interpret that, it's clear that the scope of the second coming is different from the ascension. and the words in the same way in Acts 111 are talking about its mode.

Both events are bodily, okay? And there's probably more we could say about that too, but what I'm just trying to emphasize right now is the second coming is not a spiritual event. Sometimes we say, you know, Jesus came into my life in 1994 or whenever, or Jesus showed up at church today. And we're just talking about where he's at work, not where he's bodily present. there are even in the New Testament judgment comings of Christ threatened to several of the churches in Revelation 2 and 3.

These are distinct from the second coming. For example, to the church in Pergamum, Christ says, I will come to you and wage war with the sword of my mouth if you don't repent. So that's a particular coming. We sometimes speak of these as judgment comings. We sometimes say these are typological anticipations of the second coming. But the second coming is going to be a visible. bodily event, unlike these more local activities of Christ that can be spoken of as a coming and anticipate the second coming, but they're not the second coming. So what we were trying to, I'm actually

think it's important to belabor this point pastorally, because we want to push against any sort of gnostic idea. We are not awaiting being whisked away from physical material creation. Rather, when Jesus returns in his resurrected flesh, he will renew all of creation. And I say more in this video about that. It's a video about heaven that I worked pretty hard on back in the day a couple years ago. Third, the second coming will be sudden. Okay? Here we can go back to 2. Peter 3 in the language I have emboldened, like a thief.

This phrase, like a thief, is used throughout the New Testament for Christ's second coming. And it conveys that the second coming will be a sudden and unpredictable event. just like a thief breaking into your house, it's not broadcast in advance such that you can prepare for it. So therefore you have to be ready at any time. The second coming of Christ is not a gradual unfolding process. It is a sudden event, rupturing history, unveiling Jesus suddenly in his true glory. However, these three characteristics are not enough to really capture the full meaning of the second coming. Because Jesus can conceivably appear personally,

bodily and suddenly in ways that aren't the second coming, perhaps this is what happens with the Apostle Paul on the Damascus Road, where he says, I saw Jesus. And Jesus is omnipotent. He can show up any time he wants in a bodily way. So, but that wouldn't be the second coming. Fourth, the second coming is consummating. This is the end of human history. This is the climactic, undeniable summation of all God's prior work. And this is really the key point. because this is why it is our hope. And to develop this, we can just appreciate how different the first and second comings of Christ are. The first coming of Christ was in humility to bring salvation.

The second coming of Christ will not be in humility. It will be in power and glory, and it will bring that work of salvation to its consummation, and therefore it is fittingly described as for the purpose of judgment. For example, in the Apostles' Creed, we say that he will come to judge, to judge the living and the dead. And in the Nicene Creed, I underlined this phrase, come again in glory to judge the living and the dead. That little phrase in glory distinguishes the second advent from the first. The first advent in the Nicene Creed is spoken of as a descent. He came down from heaven, but the second is not. The second is spoken of as in glory.

So we've got two different comings. The first is humble in nature and saving and purpose. a second is glorious in nature and judging and purpose. These are not at cross purposes or in competition. Both Advents of Christ serve the same ends, but they play different roles, and they are different in their nature. So we want to say the second coming is the consummation of all of God's purposes, and that is why it is our hope. Paul can even refer to this event as simply our blessed hope.

I hope that feeling of hope settles in your heart, as we're talking. about this. Some Christians feel anxious about these things. I hope that the second coming of Christ would instead make you feel steady and happy. Think of the way you feel when the sun is starting to rise after a long, cold night, and it's this feeling of relief like at last the morning is here. The New Testament's emotional register for the second coming is not alarm, but it's relief for the people of God, I'm thinking right now, for faithful Christians waiting for it. It's vindication, homecoming, total joy. Think about this.

You will finally feel seen. You will finally feel normal. You will finally feel at home. Think of a child who is waiting for a parent who's been delayed, okay? And they're anxious. I remember one time, I'll see if I can find this picture and put it up on the screen. I was coming back to Ohio where we lived for many years, beautiful spot in California. I loved our time there.

And I had been gone for a long time. And I got home. My kids were waiting for me on the front porch. ran down to the car and we just hugged in the street for like 30 seconds. I just could not believe, you know, think of the joy of that moment. You're waiting for dad to get home and there he is. Those are the emotions that we should have in our hearts for this second coming. If you're walking with Jesus now, that is what you will feel when he shows up. Now, if you are not a Christian, you've not surrendered your life to Christ, that will not be what the second coming is like.

That is why it is so important to surrender our lives to Christ now before that time. Now, the second coming of Christ is intertwined with several other events that it initiates. Let me more briefly describe these. Resurrection, judgment, final state. First, the final resurrection, this is the second of these four essential doctrines. We're just trying to give a brief overview, just for people to have a sense of, okay, this is basically what Christian eschatology is. And this is actually so important. And actually, do Christians miss out on this all the time and assume this, neglect this, fail to appreciate this? I think we do.

Sometimes we think of our hope in escapist terms. That is not our hope. The resurrection of the body entails so much for how we anticipate our future hope of being with Jesus. There's way too much Gnosticism in Christian thought today. Just as the second coming of Christ will be bodily, so our account, experience of the last things that follow it will also be a bodily one. In the New Testament, this event seems to be portrayed as occasioned by the second coming of Christ, for as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive, but each in his own order, Christ's the first

fruits, then at his coming, those who belong to Christ. That's a pivotal text. In my mind, This fits better with ah millennial and post-millennial views, which I will define in chapter three because they don't split up the second coming and the final resurrection. And I know there are responses that pre-millennialists can give, but at least this puts the burden of proof to explain something like this. How do you get a huge gap between these two events? That's not settling that. I'm flagging that.

Okay, pop quiz. Are only Christians resurrected, or is everyone resurrected? it. And the answer is, final resurrection is for absolutely every human being without exception. When Paul is on trial in the book of Acts, he speaks of the resurrection of both the just and the unjust. And Jesus himself said that some will come out of their tombs for life, and others will come out of their tombs for judgment. So this closely links here, Final Resurrection and Final Judgment. The final resurrection is unto the final judgment, or what we sometimes call judgment day. This is where God publicly and decisively sets the world right.

Think of the disharmony of a fallen world finally snapping back into harmony, equilibrium restored. Every person will stand before Christ and full justice will be done. evils will be exposed that were gotten away with, wrongs will be addressed, justice would be meted out, truth will be revealed, goodness will be recompensed, every score will be settled. This is a good thing. Sometimes we think of judgment day only in somber terms as though something we're fearful of. Now, we should have a sense of the fear of the Lord, but for those of us in Christ, we can also face that day with confidence, a fear and trembling kind of confidence, but a confidence, knowing our, our, our,

righteousness before God is not based upon anything inside of me. It's based on the perfect, external, alien righteousness of Christ, and therefore, I don't need to fear damnation. Nonetheless, we should take this into our hearts. This is a serious moment. But I just, what I'm also emphasizing right now, though, is belief in judgment day is incredibly stabilizing. It helps you practice turning the other cheek, because God is going to deal with everything. And judgment day will be totally fair. God is the most just person and the perfect judge. Now, as we say, for those in Christ, you don't need to live in fear of condemnation of this event because you are wrapped in his righteous robes as you trust in him. However, and this is a point we often overlook, we will still be examined

on Judgment Day on the basis of our lives. Paul is speaking to Christians as a Christian when he writes, in 2 Corinthians 510, we will all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, and in Romans 1412, each of us will give an account of himself to God. Think about this verse. You're going to stand. Again, this is why the whole thing we're saying of, we don't want to assume these essentials. Future hope fuels present faithfulness. Just think about this. We sometimes forget, you're going to stand before Christ. And you're going to say to him, here's how I spent 2006. Here's what my social media was feed. I'm giving you an account of the life that you gave me as my perfect judge, and I'm explaining it to you. Here's how I treated my family. Here's how I endured that slander,

and so on and so forth. Think about the reward of pleasing Christ. You see how this will stabilize you and help you? Do you see the tragedy of turning down the lighthouse? We want this every day to be aiming toward that good and well done, good and faithful servant. Put it like this. If you've trusted in Jesus, your sins are totally forgiven through the cross. That happened at the first advent. So now we want to live to please the one who did that. So we will receive the crown of righteousness on that day. So we will be able to give an account of a fruitful life.

Fourthly, then, consequent upon final resurrection and final judgment will be the final state. This is that everlasting outcome of God's redemptive work, eternal life with God for the redeemed, and eternal separation from God from those who reject Him and judgment. Sometimes we call eternal life heaven, but sometimes we use that term heaven more specifically for the intermediate state. This is where deceased believers now currently reign with Christ, awaiting their resurrection body. Sometimes I like to call the final state for the righteous, the new heavens and the new earth,

following the language of Revelation 21, which is obviously echoing Genesis 1. Because Scripture presents this not as floating in the clouds, and I say this so much because I think Christians we have skewed understanding here, heaven will be this world renewed, resurrected, and organized around the glory of God. And there is so much more to say about that. See my video on heaven for that, for all the pastoral implications of that. Now, regarding the nature of hell, not going to say a lot about that here, because I just did a great discussion on that. Kirk Cameron hosted four of us two eternal conscious torment proponents, myself and Paul Copan, and then Dan Patterson and Chris Date defending annihilationism. So I'm just going to direct you to that

video. I thought it went really well. Thanks for those of you who prayed for me. I thought it was a really productive discussion. It was very loving, but we also kind of worked through differences and so forth. And I do want to clarify that I think Christians have to believe in hell, But I think that disagreement, important as it is, is not a first-rank doctrine. There are faithful Christians on both sides of that debate. So when I'm canvassing these first-rank issues, the exact nature of something like that, how do you understand what it means to be everlastingly punished? And these kinds of questions, which are more complicated than some people realize,

those are not necessarily first-rank. And I'll just encourage you to watch that video when it comes out, if you're curious more on that topic of the nature of hell. Okay, now these four points are the core of course. Christian future hope. This is what you have to have. There are people who reject some or all of these points. For example, full preterists believe that all eschatological events were fulfilled in the first century or some other time in the past. And they think we're now living in the new heavens and the new earth. Jesus' second coming was not a bodily and visible return at the end of history.

it's some kind of spiritual return. And basically, the final resurrection has already happened. It was a spiritual resurrection. And I have a full video arguing against this view. Let me just recap why, summing up, why full preterism has been viewed by Christian throughout church history as heretical. And that is the way Paul classifies the teaching of Hymenaeus and Felitis in 2, saying they swerve from the truth, upsetting the faith of some.

by denying, by seeing the resurrection already happened. And then you have in 1st Corinthians 15, Paul teaches that denying the bodily resurrection means your faith is futile and you're still in your sins. This is a first-rank issue. It's not unkind to identify first-rank issues and use the word heresy when it's appropriate. This is why theological triage is so valuable. It protects the seriousness of that term by not diluting it by using it for too many things. Some things are heresy because there's boundaries to Christianity. And it's not unloving to recognize those. Christianity is not a shape-shifting religion.

There are edges, and you have to be able to tell where those edges are. If you say these four events have already happened, you can't even experience the same feelings of hope and joy when you read The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis, the final of the Chronicles of Narnia. You can't even affirm the Apostles' Creed. And as we say, it goes against the New Testament. So we want to coalesce around and emphasize and orient our hearts toward these four cardinal Christian doctrines of the end times. That is our primary hope.

Let's emphasize that. Chapter 3. Let's also talk about some of the disagreements and just canvass these. In what follows, my goal is not an exhaustive treatment by any stretch. A brief overview. And basically just to provide an outline of how you might think about these things. I'm a partial preterist, and I have a video explaining that. So that full disclosure lets you know a little bit about how I approach some of these topics.

And I'm going to follow up. If you're interested in that, if you really want a case for one view versus another on these topics, I'm going to have a video, Lord willing, coming out one week from the day this video is released, called The Book of Revelation explaining every chapter. That's an ambitious video title, right? I'll do my best to lay it out. Again, even that won't be exhaustive. but just giving a sense of what these different things are,

like the mark of the beast in Revelation 13. Fascinating. Everyone's curious about this. Some people, it almost feels like they've seen so much over speculation. They don't even want to talk about those things. And I don't want to do that either. I think that's wrong. This is in God's word.

We want to be able to talk about these things. So that is the video where I'll drill down and give you my own perspective. If you want my argument, see that. Here, I want to lay out the options. And then I want to give an argument that Christians can disagree. about these four topics without questioning each other's integrity, commitment to scripture, without separating at the level of church membership, and so forth. Let's work through this, and I'll make my case.

First, let's talk about the millennium. The millennium refers to the thousand-year golden era, prophesied by John in Revelation 21 through six, during which Satan is bound. Now, how we interpret that, and in particular, how we situate it in relation to the and coming and other eschatological events has been a hugely divisive issue, especially in recent church history, and especially among evangelicals. I'm going to try to break things down really simply. I love to try to popularize and make things clear. So the basic issue can be said very simply. Post-millennialists in yellow on the screen believe that Christ returns after the millennium,

hence post-millennialists, and there's differences from one kind of post-millennialist to another, but they often see, they're often very optimistic about human history, and they're anticipating this kind of golden age where the world is heavily Christianized towards the end of church history. Pre-millennialists, hence the name, believe Christ comes before the millennium, and you've got lots of different species of this view, often distinguished by differences on the timing of the Great Tribulation and the Rapture. You can see two options here in blue and red on the screen. And the big divide here is between historic premillennialism and dispensational pre-millanialism,

more on those to come. And then Amelennialists in green do not think of the millennium as a literal thousand years. That's true sometimes for the post mills, too. But rather, Amelanists view it as Christ's reign in heaven with his saints during the time between the two comings as the gospel is advancing on earth. And the binding of Satan, they say, but they say, look, thrones are always heavenly in revelation. The binding of Satan is for the specific purpose of not deceiving the nations. And that's what's happening in this time period. The gospel is going out throughout all the world. Now, I'm an millennialist. I'm not going to

argue for that here. I'll do that in another context. I've done that in my previous video on eschatology too. But here's what is to observe is how divisive this has been. so much so, so much more so in recent times than in previous times in church history. What has happened is during the emergence of evangelicalism, you have, especially in the 20th century, so like the neo-evangelical movement coming out of fundamentalism, you have pre-millennialism coming alongside biblical inerrancy as an identity issue to kind of distinguish the faithful Christians from the liberals. And though there's debates about, the millennium earlier in church history, it doesn't play out like that earlier in church history

for the most part. And I remember, you see this, I mean, we forget the 20th century already. It's like ancient history for us. But if you go back, I remember reading the autobiography of Carl Henry, for example, a famous evangelical leader. He talks about how many occasions this was a point of division among the early evangelicals and among between the evangelicals and fundamentalists. in George Marston's book, Reforming Fundamentalism, fascinating book about the early years of Fuller Theological Seminary, he talks about how that institution was thoroughly premil. It's in their statement of faith. And then it's, the faculty is divided over a pre-tribulational versus a post-tribulational view of the rapture, which I'm explaining next. And Marston talks about this as, you know,

a point of contention, when George Ladd published a book called The Blessed Hope in 1956, arguing for historic premil, it was hugely controversial. So you can imagine how controversial, ah-mill, or post-mill would have been. Here's a funny anecdote that David Roach notes that gives you a flavor of how things were playing out in the mid-20th century, at least in the United States, and a few other places. Quote, in the mid-20th century, Memphis pastor R.G. Lee, quipped that he wouldn't even say, ah at the dentist, a reference to the strong aversion he and other theological conservatives in the Southern Baptist Convention felt toward millennialism.

Now, if you read this book or others like it, they find similar things like this, they finished the full book, going through four different views, these are great books to read to learn the different arguments for each side, and the editor's closing comment is that this issue is one of the most divisive elements in recent Christian history. So I think that the role that the millennium has played in dividing evangelicals is unfortunate. I think it's historically eccentric. I think it's one of those ways we're departing from the path without really fully realizing it.

And so I hope you'll consider this case three reasons why I think we should not divide over the millennium in any context. A biblical argument, a practical argument, and a historical argument. Again, these are not arguments for my view, which is Amil. these are arguments why we shouldn't divide over this. And if you're not Amil, I hope you'll still be able to watch my YouTube channel and benefit, and we can just keep hanging together as the body of Christ serving the same larger end. We're on the same team here. This issue doesn't need to tear us apart. First, a biblical argument. The Millennium is only explicitly taught in one passage of the

New Testament, a notoriously difficult passage coming in perhaps the most difficult book in the New Testament. Now, there's other passages that are involved. Okay, you know, pre-millennialists, for example, will appeal to other texts as well. But the only passage that actually mentions a millennium is Revelation 20, 1 to 6. Now, on the one hand, one text should be enough to require our assent if we're clearly convinced of a particular understanding of it. But as we've said, this is a very difficult passage. Revelation is filled with apocalyptic imagery and symbolism, is notoriously challenging to interpret. And so I want to be careful about dividing from other Christians on the basis of a text

that is highly disputed where you've got godly Christians like Augustine, changing their mind on it throughout their career, more on Augustine and church history in a second. A second argument is that practically the doctrine of the millennium makes much less difference to the Christian life and to the health of the church moment by moment. I'm not saying it makes no difference. but it's very different from the first rank issues we've surveyed, or even the things I tend to put in the second rank category, like aspects of ecclesiology or the doctrine of the church,

like the sacraments, for example. Those are practical issues you just have to do something about, and they're affecting your church life every Sunday. But your view of the millennium isn't going to come up that regularly on Sunday morning worship services when you're sharing the gospel. It'll flavor things here and there, but it's not right in the center. It's not this fork in the road where you just,

have to come together in one way or the other. And the most Christians can recognize that. The biggest way people will dispute that is they'll say, a lot of times our pre-millennialist friends will say that the A-Mail and post-mail views spiritualize the Bible, and therefore it affects the church profoundly because it punctures our doctrine of scripture. Here's how one person puts it, quote, the modernist who spiritualizes the resurrection of Christ, does so by almost the same techniques as are used by B.B. Warfield, who finds heaven described in Revelation 21 through 10. And I would just respectfully push back by saying that those of us who are persuaded against

a pre-mail view are not spiritualizing the passage. We are simply trying to read it according to its literary genre. And even if we're wrong, that's a crucial difference between the liberal who denies the resurrection, because that person typically says, yeah, the initial disciples believed in a bodily resurrection, and then they reject that on other grounds. But an Amil or a Post-Mil reader of Revelation 20 is coming to their view precisely because they think that's what the text means. That's not puncturing our doctrine of scripture. This is just a disagreement about how to interpret it. And so this is where my concern about the awareness of church history is so critical, and it's my third argument here. The idea that Am-Mil or

or postmill spiritualizes Revelation 20, just like a liberal spiritualizes the resurrection, requires us to say that most Christians throughout church history spiritualized this passage, because that's the majority view. Throughout church history, you do find the notion of a literal 1,000-year reign on earth after Christ's coming. Usually goes by other names like Killianism and millinarianism and things like this. And you can find a rough version of this view. There's differences among some early church fathers like Justin Martyr and Iranais. Sometimes it crops up among more separatist groups with more of an apocalyptic kind of vibe

to it. But it is not the only view in the early church in those first several centuries. And if you want a case just that demonstrates that, you can see this book by Charles Hill. That is quite good. Moreover, from the time of Augustine, when Augustine sort of changes his mind on this question in favor of Amillennialism in the city of God early 5th century, up until the 17th century, all pre-millennial schemas were broadly eclipsed, and they really weren't in the mix. The prevailing, predominating view during this huge span of time, these 12 centuries or so,

is well expressed by Thomas Aquinas, when he says, the thousand-year period of Revelation 20 is the whole time of the church in which the martyrs, as well as other saints, reign with Christ, both in the present church, which is called the kingdom of God, and also, as far as souls are concerned, in the heavenly country for the thousand years, the thousand means perfection. That is the broad view of the majority of church history. That's what the reformers broadly held to. I'm allowing for some variation here. And so here's the point that I'm trying to make is that doesn't mean it's automatically right. but it does rub against the idea that this view doesn't take scripture seriously.

It's really hard to sustain that critique when it entails you're saying everybody from Augustine to John Calvin to B.B. Warfield all had an sort of aberrant doctrine of scripture. Just one final point, and then I'll move on. And that's Jay Grasher-Machin, who wrote the book, Christianity and Liberalism. This is a leading statement against theological liberalism from about 100 years ago. And this book is a great model of triage, actually. and he states his disagreement with the pre-millennial view, but then he says, I'm unwilling to divide from them. Quote, yet how great is our agreement with those who hold the pre-millennial view?

They share to the full, our reverence for the authority of the Bible, and differ from us only in the interpretation of the Bible, certainly then from our point of view, their error, serious, though it may be, is not deadly error, and Christian fellowship, with loyalty not only to the Bible, but to the great creeds of the church can still unite us to them. End quote. Machen, of course, was the great leader of the conservative Presbyterian split in the early 20th century. You can't accuse him of being weak on sound doctrine or unsympathetic to the cause of

polemics. So I think we should hear his appeal there that Christian fellowship is not at stake on this issue, important as it is. Okay, let's talk about the rapture next. I'm going to go quickly on these next three because a lot of what I've just argued about the millennium, we'll have some crossover applications as you will be able to discern as we go here. I'm just going to canvas these topics and then make the case that we don't need to divide over these things. And some of these things I'll then drill down to into more in my video next week on

the book of Revelation. The rapture, the word rapture comes from the Latin translation of 1st Thessalonians 4-7, where Paul says that will be caught up to meet the Lord when he comes. and all Christians believe in this text, but there's disagreement about the nature of the rapture. So, for example, is it a secret rapture? And then about its chronology. So you find discussions about a pre-tribulational rapture where, as the term implies, the Christ will secretly rapture believers before the Great Tribulation. There's a mid-tribulational rapture where it happens halfway through.

So you've got some persecution that Christians are preserved from. Sometimes they'll link that with the seventh trumpet in Revelation. And then you've got the post-tribulational rapture view, where the rapture occurs at the same time as Christ's second coming and visible return after the tribulation were caught up to meet the Lord. The fourth option here would be many Christians, especially in the Ammill and post-mill camps, don't see the rapture as a distinct event to be correlated to the Great Tribulation at all.

This would be my perspective. And we would just say, this is just what happens at the second coming. We're caught up to meet him as he comes, and the language here in First Thessonians four is drawing from the ancient practice of greeting a dignitary or important person who arrives and then escorting him into the city. It's kind of using this language. And the focus here is that the rapture is not an evacuation of this world. It is a participation in Christ's decisive arrival.

to renew it. And so insofar as in the New Testament, you find people swept away, it's swept away for judgment. And that seems clear from the context of Matthew 24, 40 to 41, where it's the one who's taken away who is in judgment and the one who is left, who is saved. Not to argue for that here, but those are some of the options you get there. And as you can see, this disagreement is then a sub-disagreement within the larger issue of the millennium. And so a lot of the same reasons for why we shouldn't divide over the millennium, I want to argue we don't need to divide here. Biblically, it is again less clear, practically it is less consequential, and historically it is more diverse, though I need to say the idea of a secret pre-tribulational rapture does not appear anywhere

in church history prior to the 19th century so far as I can tell. Maybe I'm missing something, but I cannot see any historical precedent for this view whatsoever. Most Christians from the early church through the reformers expected Christ's return and the resurrection of the dead, but didn't separate out any kind of secret event from that schema. And so I would be strongly encouraging. This is not an area. Again, when evangelicals assume this kind of view, we're straying off the path without realizing it. With all respect, please, I hope you will consider that.

Here's a third area where I'm arguing we don't need to separate over disagreements, and that is the nature and timing of the Antichrist. Now, the term here is itself kind of part of the challenge. The term Antichrist is not always a technical term. First John uses this term to refer to antichrists in the plural who have already come in 1 John 218. But many Christians have thought that the New Testament also envisions one particular figure, or entity of some kind that we can call the Antichrist, and sometimes this person or this entity is considered to be the same as the beast of Revelation and the man of lawlessness in 2, Thessalonians too. Very broadly speaking, there are three main views about the Antichrist throughout church history

or the beast or the man of lawlessness. Pick your terms. Some, especially in the early church, thought this referred to Nero, or some of the other. other Roman emperor and the imperial power that they represent and wield against Christians. You find that view a lot. You see it in Lactantius. You see it in John Chrysostom. The first commentary on the book of Revelation by Victorinus in the third century argues for something like that. A second common view is that the Antichrist is the papacy, very common among the reformers. I think that's a difficult view to sustain exigenically. And then a third common view,

this is very common. This is the dominant one among evangelicals today is the Antichrist is some kind of future world politician. So you can see a big difference here is going to be whether we're looking to the past or the future. Futurist views versus preterist views. My next video on Revelation will make an argument in favor of option one, particularly Nero. That'll come out next week. I am not 100% sure about that, but I think that's a good candidate. I think that's a reasonable interpretation. It probably explains the texts better than any other interpretation, even if we can just be recognized. This is difficult and not be so dogmatic about these things. That's just a simple point about theology and life in general. You don't need

100% certainty about everything, right? But I'll make the argument there and try to triage that as best as I can as well. But my triaging of this issue would be the same as these past two. Biblically, this is less clear, practically this is less consequential, and historically there's much more diversity. When I preached through Second Thessalonians 2 a few years back, and I'm wrestling with this, I remember praying for that sermon thing, what do I say about the man of lawlessness, or as he's called here, as you see on screen, the sun of destruction? And my preaching strategy was to emphasize application of the principles more than speculation about the details, which I think is a legitimate way to make the emphasis in a sermon. But it was also quite relieving to be able to

quote Augustine as saying, I frankly confess, I do not know what he means. And it's kind of endearing to see these great theologians struggling with these passages. This is a difficult topic. I think the man of lawlessness here can plausibly refer to Nero because Nero is a ruler who exalts himself as divine in some sense. He demands worship. He unleashes horrific persecution against believers, unfathomable. And he embodies lawlessness and rebellion. He just seems to fit the profile generally, but there's little wrinkles in these texts that I don't know how to explain either. So that's why I'm saying this is my best effort. Stay tuned for that video. If you want to see me work that through, here I'm just saying, let's not divide in the body of Christ over this issue,

but let's keep studying it and talking about it. And I think the same way for the Great Tribulation. Here again, the Great Divide, one of them, will be whether this is a past or future event. So typically in the Great Tribulation, we're drawing not just from the book of Revelation and certain texts there, but the events that are spoken of in Mark 13 and then the parallels in the other synoptic gospels, Matthew 24, Luke 21, the so-called Olivet discourse. And some people see this as future events. Others see this as actually talking about the past, referring to the Romans. siege of Jerusalem toward the end? Well, not right at the end. In the context of the first Roman

Jewish war culminating in the destruction of the temple in 70 AD, a colossal event that sometimes we forget how world-shattering it was. And the argument here is this fits the context. The entire discourse is occasioned by the disciples talking about these buildings in Jerusalem, and Jesus saying, they're all going to get knocked down, which is, of course, exactly what happens. and then you have just what seemed like explicit references to the siege of Jerusalem in these passages like Luke 21-24. It's right there in the text. Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles. And the tricky thing about the nature of biblical prophecy is the telescoping and all these different ways that prophecy works, which is why I'm going to argue in my video next week that if we are consistent with how we read books like Isaiah and Hosea and Zechariah and Ezekiel,

with how we read Revelation and the Olivet discourse, we can make some sense out of this. And I'll argue for a partial preterist view, but this is another area where Christians can disagree, and we don't need to divide from one another. And I have really the same kind of appeal here. By the way, there's some other views on this, too. It's not just futurism and preterism. Historicism is a view that thinks the events of revelation and find fulfillment throughout the course of church history. And then you have idealism, which holds that the book of Revelation is not so much describing singular specific historical episodes, as much as kind of the timeless struggle that will go on and is probably instantiated in many different events prior to the return of

Christ. So I'll cover, I'll say more about those in my next video. Here I'm making the argument that it's third rank for the same reasons. It's less clear in the Bible, it's less practical on the ground, and historically it's more diverse. As important as these issues are, they are not the center of our hope. More on that in my next video. So what's the upshot of all this? I would say, I simply don't think we can know exactly where we are in the in the schema of events leading up to the second coming of Christ. And I think simple uncertainty is good in the sense that it requires us to say, let me be ready at any moment. But what we can, can know and should emphasize is the certainty of Jesus's coming, the fact that there will be

suffering, you know, here's the thing, even if you think the great tribulation so called described in the Olivet discourse is referring to a specific historical event, as I do, that doesn't mean there's not going to be other tribulations, and it doesn't mean that some of them aren't going to be great. So just like there's not going to, it doesn't mean there won't be other things that are anti-Christ. And so we're not saying there won't be other. There won't be other forms of suffering. In fact, I think we have many reasons to think there will be persecution and suffering that we should expect prior to the return of Christ. And the emphasis and the urgency and the priority is now evangelism, global missions, and living fully as the people of God. That's why I'm

on YouTube. I'm trying to be an evangelist. And in the context of that, I'm trying to serve the church, and that's where triage comes in. And it's why I wrote a book, by the way, called Why Christianity makes sense. Releasing November 26. I'm really excited. I'll share more about that. other videos. Let's keep studying all these tertiary doctrines. They're important. But let's focus on the main things. The final thought is, let's go back to the lighthouse metaphor, right? Can you see the light of the lighthouse? Are you living with that as your daily hope? Let me give you this final passage from the last battle, which captures the emotions of our hope, and let this be the thing that we sort of land the plane out of like, this is what all Christians

can come together around. I love this scene. Aslan is speaking and he tells them they've died and therefore the term is over. The holidays have begun. The dream is ended. This is the morning. And then it says, as he spoke, he no longer looked to them like a lion, but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us, this is the end of all the stories. And we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them, it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page. Now at last they were beginning chapter one of the great story which no one on earth has read, which goes on forever, in which every chapter is better

than the one before.